Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/366

 356 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

'* Through pipes of clay, and trumps of tin, The windy voice of some is sent ;

Some try the cymbal's crashing din, Or trombone, noisy instrument.

Which the stunned god long kept concealed,

Till lost Pompeii's wrecks revealed. 33

��" Some, mellower-eared, aspire to sound The flute, or oboe clear and thin ;

Some the deep viol's tone profound, Some the light wreathing violin ;

While some attune the sacred rhyme

To the grand organ's voice sublime.

" But most now herd with that new school, Which roams from sense and sound astray ;

Whose rambling tunes, despising rule, Howl like some Chinese orchestra.

More harsh than angry cats that fright

The stillness of a summer's night.

" Yet, while the sounds so different be, Still less in concord with each other

The thoughts and sentiments agree ; Seldom, in bard, bard finds a brother.

'Twixt false and true such friendship grows

As holds 'twixt nightingales and crows.

'■'■ There shalt thou find, in conclave joined, That class whom Plato hath derided,3'^

Whose sense is from the sage purloined ; There those who, by no reason guided,

Are but as mouthpieces admired.

And bray, like Balaam's ass inspired.

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